San Rafael videographer's documentary on execution earning awards

AS A RESIDENT of San Quentin Village for many years, S. Kramer Herzog had already experienced what happens to the sleepy village of 100 before an execution.

In 2005, when it looked clear that Crips founder Stanley "Tookie" Williams was going to be executed after years of appeals, Herzog, a longtime videographer, had an idea — film what happens behind-the-scenes.

"I said, you know, this would make a great story; let's turn this around. Let's turn the cameras on the news media," says Herzog, 71, who moved from San Quentin Village to San Rafael a few weeks ago.

Herzog cut a deal with Fox News; the news team could stay in his house, but they had to let him film them during the hours leading up to the midnight Dec. 13, 2005, execution.

They agreed.

"They had a prime spot. They had prime everything," says Herzog, who didn't choose to focus on Fox for any ideological reasons, but because he had allowed Fox to use his driveway at a previous execution and so he had a connection to the producer.

Herzog knew Williams' execution was going to be different from the three he had experienced previously as a neighbor to San Quentin State Prison.

"This was the biggest protest ever at San Quentin," says Herzog, a fourth generation Marin resident who photographed his first execution protest at age 14. "Because he wrote books, was a founder of the Crips, with so much 'good guy, bad guy, kill him, don't kill him,' I knew this was going to be a top story."

And it was. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, Bianca Jagger, Sean Penn, Joan Baez, Ann Lamott, Mike Farrell and Angela Davis were among the more than 1,000 who gathered outside San Quentin's East Gate.

The events of that day as well as interviews with the media and neighbors have become "Eye of the Storm," a 15-minute documentary he finished last year and that won a 2013 Hometown Media Award from the Alliance for Community and CreaTV's best producer award for 2012. It screened at the Lighthouse International Film Fest in New Jersey in and the Denver Film Festival last month, and Herzog is busy entering it in other film festivals, including Mill Valley's, while working on projects for his video production company, VideoZog.

Herzog wasn't interested in commentary on Williams or the death penalty at the time, although he now admits he's against the death penalty. All he wanted to do is show people the frenzy that occurs when the media show up for a high-profile event.

It doesn't bring out the best in people, he observes.

"Angry, angry, angry people come out to protest because they have something to vent, and a very small, maybe 10 percent, of them were very quiet and would hold a candle and would pray. They were to me the ones who were really sincere," he says. "The rest were out there to raise Cain, and every time the camera was on them, then they'd perform like monkeys."

Fox News was the top target. A few dozen demonstrators tried to block Fox from broadcasting, and the more the news team attempted to regain its spot, the louder the demonstrators became. Eventually, they became violent.

Herzog was assaulted a few times, too.

His house was a refuge — or as he calls it, the "eye of the storm" — for the Fox News team.

Being in the spotlight changes people, says Herzog.

"As soon as they clicked their lights on and started filming, the noise got really loud," he says. "For many people it's about forgiveness, and for others it's about revenge. And that's where the two clash."

Herzog has won numerous awards for previous documentaries he's made, including "San Quentin Inside," which documents the prison's sports program, and "I Remember Mo-Me," a tribute to San Anselmo resident Mozart Kaufman, a World War II hero and Herzog's surrogate father. But "Eye of the Storm" has helped him realize a lifelong dream.

"I never had my sights set that I'd ever be in a film festival. This is the first film I ever had the confidence to put into one," he says.

Vicki Larson can be reached at vlarson@marinij.com; follow her on Twitter at @OMGchronicles, fan her on Facebook at Vicki-Larson-OMG-Chronicles